Zedyone_kenobi

Got my seats back from the upholster guy. I am blown away from the results.

I will try to contact Mike at Bonzai i looked closely at my carpets in the Z and they look rather good no fraying or tears or even discoloration I may stay the course with them and just shampoo them looks like I have original sticky Jute as well maybe just Dynomat and some POR for good measure

Any body know where to get the cover for driver seat recline lever mechanism never realized I Was missing it !! pulled the seat today the current covers are actually 100% perfEct i will post pics of them anybody need some beautiful OEM VINYL seat covers

I never updated this. I got m new ash tray cover in and it look for every bit as I can tell OEM perfect. I highly recommend this guy's outfit. Great customer service and great quality.

20000 US dollars for that car is what I would call well bought. You did not get the deal of the century, but you also did not get taken for a ride either. I think you paid market price for a well loved and cared for first gen Z car. You could have spent more and got less, and you could have spent less and maybe got as much or more (if you were crazy lucky) I would not lament the purchase price at all. If the car is well sorted and all 'there' you paid a fair price for the car. Neither the sell nor yourself should have any bad feelings from the deal. There is always the potential of finding a better 'deal', but you had very specific requirements, and with every requirement you held to (good for you by the way), the chancing of finding that 1 in a million deal dropped. I congratulate you on a well bought car and I think you will be happy for many years to come.

I will certainly look into that Mike. My foam was 2 weeks out of stock at MSA, so I hope they show up sooner than later. I will probably go ahead and pull the seats next weekend and take a better look at my carpet.

need to look up the difference between the two if I am honest.

Ordered new foams for the both seats and considering putting in a new carpet kit 'while I am at it'. It is going to come down to the carpet kit or some new wheels. Not sure. Maybe both. I need to start selling off wheel sets. I have some VTO LeMans I need to unload as well. Too many wheels. Any recommendations on who makes a really good carpet kit?

Wonderful car and well bought buddy! Welcome to the club of Z ownership. You have a splendid example to start with and far better than many of us started with. I think you will enjoy her for Many many years to come. Hold on for a fun ride! I look forward to seeing your progress and where you go from here. That is a wonderfully honest looking Z. With a lot of the correct mods already done. Keep us posted!

Wonderful car and well bought buddy! Welcome to the club of Z ownership. You have a splendid example to start with and far better than many of us started with. I think you will enjoy her for Many many years to come. Hold on for a fun ride! I look forward to seeing your progress and where you go from here. That is a wonderfully honest looking Z. With a lot of the correct mods already done. Keep us posted!

Well my new seat covers came in. I am beyond impressed with the not only how fast they came in, but with the quality these guys offer. WOW, the vents in the back look so good. I cannot wait to get them in the car! Mike, your car is always an inspiration to me. Such great work. Your eye for details is unparalleled. Grannyknot, thanks so much for the compliment. I have wanted seats like this for ages. I see them in vintage GT40's and some Japanese race cars, but cheapness did not allow me to pony up the 2500 bucks for real Kameari seats. I think this is a great compromise. I cannot wait to get them added to the car. I may as well order new carpet while I am at it. And I may as well order more dynamat as well. Hard not to do it all once I am in there. Note the standard OSHA approved flip flops. I will say the thickness is what impressed me the most and the consistency of the color on the leather. The symmetry and tightness of stitching is amazing. I have no idea how these guys do it so cheaply. I suppose the fact that the work is done in Pakistan is one thing. I shudder to think how little they pay the poor guys working on these things. But the results are phenomenal.

Man, that is a great gift! Awesome! Happy fathers day guys. Wish I could have spent some time in the garage, but it was not meant to be. My wifes attitude toward fathers day... "Father's Day, I don't think it means what you think it means" :).....

Mike I ALWAYS love pics of your car bud!! Hope you have been doing well. Your Z is epic!

You mean I can stop bringing the roll of kitchen drawer rubber liner to me on track days! Seriously though. Just a 12" by 12" square of that stuff will make you stick, I MEAN STICK to your seat. There will be no sliding in corners.

Well shucks, I am thrilled you have the same ones. I wanted to see a vintage Z logo. Thanks for adding them for completeness. Now if only I did not suck at photo shop. I would cut that and paste it on my image above. I am glad you like them. Is that the leather or the synthetic leather pictured.

You know I did not ask. I am going to totally redo the foam with OEM foam anyway. I think my biggest gripe is how far down in the car I am. However, I do feel 'in' the car, not 'on' it. I have to be careful about not getting my foam redone and the straps on the bottom redone so that I feel I sit ON the seat and not in it. I have to walk the line here.

You know I did not ask. I am going to totally redo the foam with OEM foam anyway. I think my biggest gripe is how far down in the car I am. However, I do feel 'in' the car, not 'on' it. I have to be careful about not getting my foam redone and the straps on the bottom redone so that I feel I sit ON the seat and not in it. I have to walk the line here.

I have been wanting to redo my OEM seats for while. IF you saw mine you would think they look perfect. They are not faded or torn or even the slightest bit worn. However, I have always thought the foam had given up the ghost. Come to find out the PO had the OEM seats recovered, but did not do new foam. So what is a guy to do? Well I was dead set on getting the Kameari seats for the car. They are just absolutely stunning. But something tells me that they may be a bit too narrow. Plus they are 1700 dollars plus brackets, plus 575 dollars shipping. That is a hell of a pill to swallow. I probably could have saved for it, but the thought that they would be narrow and hard to get out of gave me pause. Having narrow seats is not the end of the world, I would fit, but having seats that could cost upwards of 2500 dollars that are also narrow, is just too much of a risk. One day I may see some and sit in them and realize they are the best seats ever, but I just cannot gamble with that much money. So I had what I thought to be a clever idea. I read about that interior shop www.interior-innovations.com that some of you spoke highly of. I decided to give them a try to see what I could come up with. I picked out a leather seat cover with silver stitching and a leather shift boot to match. I will have a classic Z logo on the headrest also in silver (may have gone too far with that, but you only live once), the pic below shows modern Z. I had to photoshop this pic to show the company where I wanted the buttons exactly. I will have the OEM buttons carried up the back of the seat as shown in the picture. Overall I am quite happy with the results. I think it will have the look of the Kameari, but keep the OEM seating position and brackets and allow me to order OEM foam replacements as needed. I cannot wait to get these in.

Your patience will be rewarded. Just to be clear, when you say series one, what do you mean? I only ask as I have seen different meanings to that term, and it is a term that Datsun never used itself. It is an owner invented term. When I hear series 1 Z I think 1970-1972 (maybe 1973). I don't really think of a series II car but if I did I would say a 260Z is a series II car and a 280Z is a series III car should you be so inclined. But again, that series XX is not something Datsun ever used to denote models. So bud, when you say series one, do you mean a 1970 only?

Well the point is that you can buy a Z that has already had a bare metal restoration (or close to it) for less than 30 probably. In essence you are buying 40k dollars in work and parts for 25k dollars. These cars are not like 911's (yet) and you rarely get more from them than you put in. So buy one that 95% there and does not NEED a bare metal restoration, then you can spend time and money just maintaining it and modifying it the way you want to (wheels, triples, decals, seats, etc)

Sorry, I may have skimmed over that. Okay, not doing the work all yourself will make things more expensive, and this leads me to the most important thing. Buy the BEST Z you can, even if it eats up ALL your budget. You can make more money. Buy a car that is just about 'done'. It will still be VERY much a project I promise you.

Okay wait, I have to ask for some clarification here bud I am confused, Are you planning on buying a car here in the colonies, and having it worked on and restored here and then shipping it, or are you planning on getting it to you and restoring it? I will add something else. Buy a car that be driven while you work on it. Being able to drive one is the fuel to the restoration fire. Having a non running car for years is true test of ones will, and as many of us can attest to here, life happens and priorities can quickly change.

No problem, tell us about yourself. What is your age? Mechanical skill level. Amount of money you can put toward the car every month? Do you have a place to work on the car. What kind of work are you comfortable with. Do you have access to good mechanics/machine shops/body guys/upholstery shops? There are NO wrong answers to any of these questions, but it helps to know exactly what your situation is as well as your goals. All of this matters. Getting things done locally is always better as you can put 'eyes on' the project and you are in a position to dispute work done and approve what you like and ask for corrections for work not done well. It appears you are dead set on building up THAT exact car from the petrolicious video, which is great. It is good to have a vision, but keep in mind you can enjoy these cars in almost any guise. I wish you luck.

Okay so now I have watched that video 100 and ONE times... Man, I need some 15x8" wheels.

Man, looking at your car make so ashamed of how dirty mine looks... Well done sir!! You do very distinguished work. I salute your attention to detail.